Wake Me Up
by SweetSinger2010
Summary: As Kate hangs in the balance between life and death, Johanna helps her find the will to live and fight for a future with Castle and gives Kate a glimpse of what that future could hold: a daughter. Tag to "Knockout" and "Rise."
1. Wake Me Up

A/N: If you got here because you were hoping for an update of something else, sorry. It would seem that the part of my brain which loves to write also has a touch of ADD. Oops. So here's a one (or maybe two or three?) shot piece. I'm sure this concept has been done and overdone, but humor me and enjoy (yet another) tag to 3x24 "Knockout."

Wake Me Up

 _Kate, I love you._

She could hear those four small words with perfect clarity. She knelt at Johanna's grave, reaching out to touch the stone reverently.

 _I love you, Kate._

The lilt, color, timbre of her mother's voice was perfectly preserved in memory, almost tangible in the breeze that played in the trees and stirred the soft, loose strands of her hair. Kate closed her eyes and inhaled deeply and slowly, ignoring the strange ache in her chest and the unsettling sound of chaos humming in her mind. Everything was wrong.

"Please don't cry," a tiny voice pleaded. "Please don't cry, mommy."

Startled, Kate jerked to her feet. Her eyes were wide and searching. _This_ voice was real. It was unfamiliar and confusing and sweet. One of her hands lay protectively across her flat abdomen, a subconscious tell. Her soul knew something that her mind couldn't comprehend.

"I'm here, baby," Kate heard herself say through trembling lips. "Don't be afraid."

A small hand slipped into hers and their fingers entwined naturally, as if the closeness they shared was part of their everyday routine. Kate felt dizzy. She looked down to see a beautiful small child nestled against her leg. She couldn't have been more than four years old.

"You either." A pair of lovely, innocent blue eyes smiled up at her. They were _his_ eyes.

"I'm not afraid," Kate smiled back, assuring the child—her daughter. She swallowed around a hard lump in her throat.

'Then why are we here?" A sea of gravestones stretched out before them.

"I don't—" She couldn't finish the sentence. She couldn't remember. Kate's heart beat an odd rhythm and her breath hitched uncomfortably in her throat.

 _Stay with me, Kate. Don't leave me._

She shook her head. The chaos was still there, growing louder. She squeezed the child's hand. The soft pressure kept her grounded and sure. She smiled to reassure them both.

 _Stay with me, okay?_

She fumbled for an answer. "We're here to visit my mother's grave, Elise."

The little girl's name tumbled out of her mouth reflexively.

"No we're not," she countered, shaking her blond curls. "This isn't hers, mommy."

Kate's breath was unsteady now. Her eyes snapped to the stone. She had stood in this place hundreds of times, she had memorized its every detail. But she stood here now and didn't know where was. Johanna Beckett's name was not on the stone.

 _No pulse! Bag her—start compressions!_

"What does it say, mommy? Whose is it?" Elise nudged Kate forward insistently. They held tight to each other.

"It says 'Beckett' at the top," she started. The ache in her chest was becoming harder and harder to ignore. She kept reading aloud. "Katherine Houghton, November 17, 1979."

Mother and daughter stood silent, a question lingering between them.

Elise's voice was small and uncertain. "Shouldn't there be… _two_ birthdays on it?"

"Something like that," Kate murmured, disturbed. She knew what Elise meant. There should be two dates on the stone. One to mark the beginning of life and one to mark its passing.

Kate shook her head. Panic was beginning to set in. She found it harder and harder to breathe.

 _Come on, Kate! Don't you die on me! Stay with me!_

"Look!" Elise cried suddenly, joyfully. "There she is!"

Without warning, Elise sprinted away. Kate felt bereft by the loss of the girl's touch, but one shock was immediately replaced by another when she saw Elise leap into the arms of an older woman.

" _Mom_?" Kate choked on the word, choked on the deep, throaty sobs which followed. The ground she stood on began to pitch and roll. This was impossible. Her mind was screaming. The chaos was unbearable.

 _Thirty-one year old female with a GSW to the left chest. Crashed on the way in._

Gentle arms circled her waist, slowly lowering her into the soft grass to sit against the headstone which bore her name. "Shh," Johanna whispered tenderly, smiling. "It's okay, Katie."

"Mom," she whispered raggedly. Tried to smile. She was struggling to breathe now. The ache in her chest had become a blinding, burning pain. Johanna swept the hair away from Kate's face and cupped her chin. Their eyes locked and they held a deep, sacred gaze. That moment filled the years of separation between them.

"I'm so proud of you, my girl," Johanna said softly. Tears welled in her eyes. "So proud."

Kate clung to her mother's hand and another sob escaped through trembling lips. Wordlessly, Elise lay her head in Kate's lap. Her eyes snapped to the little girl and she stretched out her arms, wanting to draw the girl close. Needing to know she was real.

"Come here, baby." Kate's voice was laced with panic. She had to take several shallow, panting breaths to continue. "Let mommy hold you."

Elise looked up with wide, fearful eyes as she climbed into Johanna's lap instead. "I can't, mommy," she cried in dismay. "You'll get blood on my dress!"

 _Get her onto the table; we're losing her!_

Kate reached to her chest and withdrew her hand slowly. Her mind was reeling, screaming. Blood?

"What's happening? Mom, I don't understand." Her words began to slur.

Johanna's lips formed a thin, taut line. She reached for her daughter's bloodied hand. "We don't have much time," she answered urgently.

 _Pulse is still falling. Stats are dropping as well._

Kate's eyelids drooped. "Let me stay with you."

Johanna squeezed Kate's limp fingers. "Katie, you have to make a choice." Her voice was charged with emotion. "You have to decide that you're not done."

"It doesn't matter as long as I have you." She closed her eyes. Closing them was the only thing to help with the pain, the blood, the chaos.

 _She's going into VFIB—paddle!_

"Katie, you're not done! Do you understand me? Do. Not. Give. Up."

Kate's eyes focused slowly. The authoritative tone of her mother's voice was one she had always felt compelled to obey. Tears rolled onto her cheeks. "It hurts," she whimpered.

Johanna pressed their foreheads together and held her daughter tightly. Time was running out. She spoke fiercely, shaking Kate's shoulders. "Listen to me. You have a future, Katie, if you fight for it. You have to fight _now_!"

 _Still fibrillating. Charge to twenty. Clear!_

There was a horrible jolt.

Everything cleared. Kate felt alert. She was breathing easier. No more pain, no more blood, no more chaos. But Johanna was gone. Elise was gone.

She backed away from the headstone. There was still only her birthdate inscribed.

This was it. This was the moment to fight.

A long, thin tone pierced the air. It was deafening, overpowering. She strained her ears, trying to hear anything else. Frantic, gasping, crying, she looked for her mother and her daughter. She made her choice.

 _Still no pulse! Charge one more time!_

She saw them as they disappeared between the rows of headstones. She took a running step forward— just one step before Elise's small, pleading voice floored her.

"Fight for me, mommy!"

 _Clear!_

* * *

"Your daughter is clear of danger now, Mr. Beckett." A young nurse reassured the anxious father with a warm tone. She bustle around Kate's bed, adjusting wires and smoothing the blankets.

Jim Beckett's shoulders heaved with a sigh of enormous relief, but the tension knit between his eyebrows remained. "Thank God. How long before she wakes?"

"Shouldn't be long." The nurse pulled a chair next to the bed, ushering Jim over to sit. She smiled kindly. "Here now—she'll want you next to her when she does come around."

Jim kept his vigil at Kate's side for nearly an hour before she began to stir.

"Dad?" Her eyelids were too heavy to open, but she knew he was there. Her voice sounded strange and ragged.

"Katie?" He tried to keep his voice level, but the hysteria and relief crept in. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair over and over. "Katie, you scared me to death. They said that your heart stopped in the ambulance—I thought I lost you. I thought I was gonna lose you."

She hurt all over. Her still-closed eyes burned. Her throat was dry and achy. Her chest felt like fire. But the corners of her mouth lifted in a slow, tired smile.

"Should've known better than that. I had to fight for mom."

"Shhh," Jim said quickly, "there'll be plenty of time for that later."

She didn't hear him. She fell back asleep, clinging to the images of her mother and of her yet-to-be daughter.

The next days and weeks would be hard. She knew that there were things she couldn't deal with, emotions that would beg to be felt in full force after the anesthesia wore off. She knew that it would be ugly. But she knew there was something greater, that there _could_ be something greater if only she'd reach for it, fight for it. She'd seen it in Castle's eyes as he leaned over her, right after the bullet ripped open the space near her heart.

 _I love you, Kate._


	2. Tell Me It's Okay

Author's Note: Thanks for the response to the first installment! Y'all seriously rock. I decided to go ahead and continue this for a while. This one is for all of you Friday night internet-dwellers. If it's late where you are, may sleep be sweet when you find it.

Wake Me Up

 _Chapter 2: Tell Me It's Okay_

In the hours following her surgery, Kate had woken mumbling about Johanna and about needing to fight. She once mentioned a woman named Elise—someone from a current case, maybe? Jim chalked it up to anesthesia, medication, and trauma, but there had been an undeniable spark in her eyes, a fiery determination. He watched it slowly fade as the drugs wore off and the pain set in, as if she was unconsciously forgetting the remnants of a dream. She never again mentioned Johanna or Elise. When he cautiously asked, she didn't remember ever speaking of them.

Jim Beckett had seen his daughter in the hospital before. Kate had her tonsils out when she was six, her appendix out when she was fourteen, and minor knee surgery after a skiing accident when she was seventeen. Growing up she'd had stitches, scrapes, sprains, busted lips, broken bones, bruises—and usually an interesting story to go along with each. She was an active child—now an accomplished detective—and no stranger to pain, never afraid of enduring a little hurt as long as she could reach her goal.

This, though—this was something different. She wouldn't be able to laugh it off or explain it away with a toss of her head. She wouldn't be over it anytime soon.

Jim knew that _he_ sure wouldn't. After her discharge, he took Kate to convalesce at his apartment. He wanted to keep her close. Needed to.

For the first couple of weeks, Kate spent most of her time in bed or carefully propped up on the couch. Still in pain, she moved slowly and was almost too weak to stand for the time it took just to shower. She used the walls, countertops, and her father's arm for support. She was pale and her cheeks were hollow and the shadows beneath her eyes reminded Jim every day of how he'd almost lost her.

His apartment was small enough that he was never more than a few steps away, never out of earshot if she needed him. The first few days she was there, they spent her waking moments talking about baseball, movies, music, and reminiscing over family photos and things that "mom used to say." They never talked about Montgomery, or Lockwood, or Kate's shooting, or Castle. And the longer they didn't talk about it, the more Kate withdrew. Her body began to heal and her physical therapy progressed smoothly, but she was grew despondent, and Jim was worried. When he found out that she had stopped reaching out to her friends, he knew something had to change. Fast.

He heard Kate stirring in the small bedroom he'd cleaned up for her to use. He rapped lightly on the door frame before going in. She watched him with questioning eyes. A book lay neglected in her lap. Jim nodded ever so slightly, knowing he was making the right choice.

"Start getting some things together, Kate. I've decided to take you to the cabin for a change of scenery."

Jim was not a superstitious man, but he believed that near-death experiences were powerful. Whatever Kate's experience, it had given her the push she needed to survive the bullet. It was his job now to give her the push she needed to survive the rest.

* * *

Kate lay in bed propped up by piles of downy pillows. She was asleep, face turned toward the sunshine streaming in through the open window. Nearly six weeks into her recovery, she still slept a good deal. Jim stood in the doorway and sighed inaudibly. He hated to wake her. She looked so serene, and he knew the conversation they were about to have would ruin that completely.

"Katie," he spoke softly, taking a careful perch on the edge of the mattress.

Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled. "Hey."

She recognized the patterns of late-afternoon shadows falling across the room and her eyebrows furrowed. "You shouldn't have let me doze like that," she murmured, shifting to sit up straighter. He didn't miss the painful wince flick across her face when she moved. "I've been trying to get back to a normal sleep schedule."

"Well, just consider it a return on all the all-nighters you pulled during college." He pressed a steaming mug of tea into her hands and placed a pill on her nightstand. Early in her recovery, she had very candidly asked him to handle her pain medication, making sure that she only took it when she needed it and not when she wanted it. "I thought you might like these."

"Thank you." She broke the pill in half and swallowed it carefully.

She held the mug tightly in her hands, reveling in the warmth it provided. It was a one-of-a-kind feeling and it comforted her, reminded her of pleasanter things. But a memory came unbidden.

 _Everybody drinks their coffee outta cardboard cups these days_ , Raglan had said, _or those plastic travel mugs. But there's—there's something about the way ceramic warms your hands…it's weird, the things you notice._

She remembered the moments that followed. The sniper bullet, the shattered mug, the chaos in the dinner, Raglan dying. The panic in Castle's voice.

 _You're hit!_

 _I'm fine! It's not my blood._

"What's weird?" Jim asked, puzzled by the short statement.

Kate's head jerked up, reverie broken. "What?"

She didn't realize she'd spoken anything out loud.

"You said, 'It's weird,' but we weren't talking about anything, Kate."

"Oh," she fumbled, bewildered. "I don't know. I think I was miles away." She flushed uncomfortably under his concerned gaze. "I'm sorry."

A heavy silence settled between them as Jim carefully chose his next few words. "I haven't seen Josh in a few days."

It was a statement and a question.

"We broke up a couple of days ago." She shifted, not quite meeting his eyes. "He called from out of town, on his way to the Ukraine or some place and the conversation went sour. It…it was a long time coming."

He nodded, unsurprised. "And what about Castle? When was the last time you talked to him?"

Kate bristled. The mention of his name made her wounds feel fresh. "Dad," she sighed, her voice edgy. "Please."

"He cares about you, Kate." Jim was unrelenting.

"I know that," she blurted impatiently. Her father was visibly taken aback by her tone. Ashamed, she lowered her gaze. "It's complicated. There's just—a lot that happened."

Their twin tempers were simmering. Jim chewed his tongue. Kate saw how carefully he was working to say the right thing. "What?" Irritation was beginning to creep in.

"I'm worried about you, Kate."

She softened, remembering that this had been an ordeal for him, too. "Dad, I'm fine. I'm recovering well; the doctor and the physical therapist are pleased."

"I know. You've made remarkable progress. But you haven't been… _you_."

Kate grew uneasy; she knew where this was headed and she wanted to head him off. "I'm working through things at my own pace," she said, making an incredible effort to keep from sounding as snappy as she felt. "Don't worry," she smiled thinly. "It's okay."

He stared at her a few seconds before squeezing her hand and rising to leave. He wasn't sure he could out-stubborn her, wasn't sure if it was worth the frustration for both of them. "Get some rest."

She watched him go, relieved. She wasn't ready to talk about it—the very idea made her panic. She closed her eyes and held her mug against sternum, breathing deeply. The warmth radiated through her body and little by little, her tense muscles relaxed. She closed her eyes and started to doze off.

She never heard him coming.

"It's not okay," Jim barked suddenly. Kate started hard enough to jostle a wave of tea out of her mug. It had been over a fifteen years since she'd heard her father had raised his voice in anger. His face was a mask of steely determination and something in his eyes made Kate shiver. He stood in the doorway, a suddenly imposing figure.

"What happened to you was every parent's worst nightmare. I saw you get gunned down in the line of duty. I saw your blood gush onto Castle's hands and on Lanie's hands as they tried to keep you alive until the ambulance could come." His eyes slipped shut and he was living it all over again. He continued, but the sudden surge of anger was gone. "By the time they had you on the gurney, you weren't breathing on your own anymore and they closed the doors," Jim stopped to take several shaky breaths before he could go on. Kate suddenly had to brush the back of her hand across her eyes when she saw that there were tears rolling down her father's cheeks.

With a quaver in his voice, he continued. "I was sure that you would be dead before they could get you to the hospital. You're my only child, Katie." Her name was a broken whisper.

"I survived," she said levelly, trying to calm him. She was at once touched and taken aback by his frankness and vulnerability. "I'm alive."

He sighed heavily and sat next to her on the bed, taking her hand. "You're alive, Katie, and I have thanked God for that every day."

"But?"

"But I'm afraid that you're not allowing yourself to live."

She blinked. "I—"

"I know you've stopped talking to your friends. You've pulled back even from me." He paused, gauging her for a reaction. He could tell that she was grinding her teeth to keep tears at bay. He took her hand. "Kate, have you talked to anyone about what happened. Have you…have you grieved?"

Her voice was tight, controlled, by her eyes welled and overflowed in spite of herself. "If I talk about it, if I grieve, that makes it real. My captain is dead, someone tried to kill me, and Castle—" she stopped short. "How am I supposed to deal with that?"

"Come here." He opened his arms to her and she lay her head on his shoulder. His chin rested on her hair and he almost laughed. "I haven't held you like this since you were eight years old."

She sniffed, calming in his embrace. "I guess I'm too old to sit in your lap anymore."

"Well, you could, but people might think you were my mid-life crisis and not my daughter."

Kate managed to chuckle wanly. A comfortable silence settled between them, the tension of the previous moments all but forgotten. Birds chirped pleasantly from the open window.

"Do you know why I brought you here?" Jim asked at length.

"Peace and quiet?" She guessed, her voice dozy. She sat up and repositioned herself to sit cross-legged in front of him. She knew exactly why he'd brought her here.

"Seven years ago, you saved me, Katie. I had been drunk for five years and you brought me up here, hid the keys, hid the car and said, 'We aren't leaving until you're stone-cold sober and you've sorted yourself out.'"

"I remember," she murmured. The memory was vivid.

"You knew that I hadn't dealt with your mother's death the way that I needed to. I was hung up and self-destructive, completely in the rabbit hole."

Kate. "At least we know I come by it honestly."

Jim couldn't reciprocate her smile. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

She studied her fingernails, nodding. He saw a single tear plop down on her hands.

"I want you to promise me that you'll reach out if you start to slip too far."

"I promise." It was a request that she could live with. He wasn't pushing her or backing her into a corner. He knew she needed to breathe.

"Just put one foot in front of the other and one day, you'll wake up and realize that it's something that you can live with until you have all the answers."

She lifted her head. "That's what I said to you back then."

"It's time to take your own advice, Kate. For your sake, and for mine. You're my only child and I'm a selfish man."

Her tears cleared and she hugged him tightly. "I won't let you down. One foot in front of the other."

"That's my girl."


End file.
